When hockey returned from the only season lost to labor strife in the history of major North American professional sports, fans were told that the dormant winter of 2004-05 would be worth it because they would be getting a “New NHL,” as if instead of a lockout, hockey had spent a year in a cocoon, waiting to emerge as a beautiful butterfly.

Ahead of the shootout, ahead of rule changes designed to generate more offense, and ahead of the announcement that NHL players would participate in the 2006 Turin and 2010 Vancouver Olympics, the NHL trumpted a “Groundbreaking Owner-Player Partnership” as the first change to bring hockey forward.

It is clear that even with the implementation of a salary cap coming out of the last lockout, several teams simply cannot compete financially with the league’s heavyweights. So, why not cut the dead weight?

Contraction? No. Not only would shuttering franchises be a public relations disaster for the NHL, it would be needlessly cruel to the people who work and root for those teams. Besides, the NHL’s longstanding problem is that the poobahs of the sport shy away from big ideas.

In order to form the NHL2, eight teams would need to be initially relegated. This could be done on a financial basis, to ensure that revenue juggernauts like the Toronto Maple Leafs and Montreal Canadiens stay in the NHL. Or, it could be done by virtue of performance on the ice in one more season under the current format. The last-place teams in each of the six existing divisions would be relegated, along with two additional teams, one from each conference—these teams would be determined by a relegation playoff between the two non-last place teams with the lowest point totals in the regular season.

That would leave a 22-team NHL with an expanded 84-game schedule—two home games and two away games against every other team in the league. Say goodbye to conferences, and to concerns about realignment sparked by nonsense like Winnipeg playing in the Southeast Division. The top 16 teams in the regular season still would make the Stanley Cup playoffs, and while there might be more travel, it would be the most equitable system for determining a championship of any sport on this continent.

The 22nd-place team in the NHL would be relegated to NHL2 for the following season, along with the loser of a playoff between the 20 and 21st-place teams. This would create a frantic ending to the season in cities that otherwise would be forgetting about hockey by March.

Similarly, there would be more late-season excitement in the cities of NHL2, racing for promotion to the top league. The NHL2 champion would automatically move up to the NHL, with a playoff between second and third place to determine the other promoted team.

Players in NHL2 still would be full members of the NHLPA, so both the union and the owners should like the next part of the plan. What starts as an eight-team league gradually grows over the next decade, starting with a burst of four expansion teams in the first year, and two more additions every other year until reaching the same 22-team format with an 84-game schedule as the NHL. The union gets more jobs, the owners get 14 rounds of expansion fees, and fans in Kansas City, Quebec, Seattle, and southern Ontario get NHL hockey—well, NHL2 to start, but NHL hockey once they earn it on the ice. And if there’s ever going to be a way to revive the Hartford Whalers, this is it.

Obviously, any relegated teams would face a major drop in revenues, and players would not be happy about competing at a lower level. To address the first concern, as well as the problems that might be encountered by NHL2 teams moving up, teams changing leagues would receive significant revenue-sharing—two years of parachute payments for a relegated team, one ladder payment for a promoted team. For players stuck on relegated teams, an opt-out clause would be added to existing contracts with a negotiable service-time threshold. Teams and players would have the option to put such a clause in future contracts.

Complementary to this opt-out system for relegated players would be a loan system whereby an NHL team could send a player to NHL2 for a full season—say, a draft pick who is too good for juniors, but not yet advanced enough for the NHL. Teams would maintain AHL affiliations (and there would be new AHL affiliates for NHL2 teams, presumably), but these season-long loans would enhance prospect development while continuing to provide that room for the best players in the world to play in the best league in the world.

While potentially harboring NHL draft picks, NHL2 teams still would need their own draftees, and they would have them, with a common draft for the two leagues. Freshly relegated teams would get to pick first, followed by the bottom of NHL2 on up to the Stanley Cup champions. Trades would be allowed between the two leagues, though players eligible for opt-out clauses would have no-trade protection to NHL2.

With the format of the new NHL, revenue sharing, and contract rules all set, what remains is the main point dividing the league and union in their current negotiations: splitting those pesky hockey-related revenues. It would seem to be an even harder task to do so across two leagues, but this is an opportunity for more forward thinking.

One of the problems that has led to the current impasse between the NHL and NHLPA is that league revenues have gone up so fast, low-budget teams have been forced to outspend their means in order to reach the salary floor. Under the current CBA, the 2012-13 floor would be $54.2 million, which is more than seven teams spent last season. In a system with relegation, there would be no floor—the motivation for spending money would be to stay in the NHL.

With only a cap in place, there still would need to be assurance that players would receive their promised share. Each year, a leaguewide target dollar figure would be set, and any windfall on player salaries would be put into an NHLPA health and retirement fund, helping to guarantee that players are taken care of long after they leave the ice.

For NHL2, there would be a salary floor, as well as a lower cap than in the NHL to compensate for the lower revenues that teams in the league would bring in. Players on NHL-only contracts would still receive full salaries, but their cap hits would be retrofitted to NHL2 salary standards.

The exact percentages used to calculate the NHL cap and NHL2 cap and floor is impossible to say without a detailed look at the financial figures that the NHL and NHLPA have spent the summer arguing about. That said, cutting the NHL to 22 teams—especially if it’s done on a straight financial basis, rather than conducting the first relegation by on-ice performance—would presumably mean that NHL owners get their desired increase in percentage of hockey-related revenues, while the players avoid rollbacks on existing contracts.

While the power teams of the NHL would be responsible for propping up their NHL2 brethren, the new league would be attractive for a no-rights fee TV deal like the NHL had when it started with NBC—a national NHL2 game of the week would provide exposure, while the promotion playoff would be a one-of-a-kind event for North American viewers. If the NHL could add that at no cost to its existing deal with NBC, and provide more NHL2 coverage on its own network, it would benefit everyone involved.

This new New NHL has about as much chance of happening as Gary Bettman and Donald Fehr vacationing together next summer. Instead, when this labor negotiation is finally settled, assuming they ever resume negotiating, it will be the same old New NHL, with all the feel-good talk from 2005 that brought us to 2012. But maybe they’ll paint “Thank You Fans!” on the ice again, so everything will be OK.